Tuesday, 2 December 2014

The Lovely Hilltop Town of Civita di Bagnoregio

The lovely Civita di Bagnoregio is a small
Italian hill town in the province of Viterbo, in central Italy. The town is
located atop a highpoint rising high above a vast canyon that is unceasingly
being eroded by two streams flowing in the valleys below and by the action of
rain and wind. This beautiful 2,500-years-old town is under constant threat of devastation
as its edges are falling off, leaving the buildings built on the plateau to
crumble.

Civita di Bagnoregio is actually two towns.
Civita is on a hill reachable only by a long stone walkway that begins at the
end of the road from neighboring town Bagnoregio. Once, Civita was the larger
community and Bagnoregio the satellite town. Nowadays, Civita has only around 6
year-round residents determined to keep this little fragment of rock alive.

Civita di Bagnoregio was bringing into being by
the Etruscans about 2,500 years ago. At that time, it was a vital city for its
position along an ancient road interlinked to a dense network of trade routes.
Civita’s decay started in the 16th century triggered by a dreadful earthquake
which, affecting serious damages to the roads and buildings compelled plentiful
inhabitants to leave the city. The constant seismic activities that followed in
the course of the centuries brought a continue series of landslides. By the end
of the 17th century, the bishop and the municipal government were enforced to
move to Bagnoregio, and by the 19th century, Civita was turning into a lovely
an island. Bagnoregio continues as a small but flourishing town, while Civita
became recognized in Italian as il paese che muore ("the town
that is dying"). It’s only recently that Civita began experiencing a
tourist revival.

Civita is an attractive medieval town with
architecture spanning several hundred years. The town’s isolation has allowed
it to withstand most disturbances of modernity as well as the destruction
brought by two world wars. Notwithstanding its nickname, during the tourist
season, Civita bustles with day trippers.